Picked up my Boston Marathon Number

My daughter Hannah accompanied me down to Boston to pick up my Boston Marathon number and to go the the marathon expo. My number is 9600, but I am not running it this year, so it ended up being a very expensive t-shirt that I received for my entry fee. When I told I told the BAA officials that I was not going to run, they wanted my number and chip back. I had been told I could keep them earlier. I wanted to show my class on Monday, plus I paid for them, why should I give them back? The BAA will not use the chips next year, so they are letting people keep them after the race this year. I remember the first year that they were introduced into the race, I had volunteered for the expo and had received the job of showing people how to use the chips and to screen them for the correct info. It was a lot of fun as it was brand new to everyone at the time. Anyhow, they  finally said I could keep my number and chip as long as I didn't give them to someone else to use during the race. That is the last thing I would do! I have been asked by a few people if they could use my number, but if I did so I could be banished from the race forever. Not only that, but the race is very public in Nashua and the results in the paper would say that I finished, even when everyone knew I didn't run.

I always enjoy going to the expo, although nowadays I have seen just about everything that someone is trying to sell and the shoe displays just don't interest me anymore. I did catch up with a few people and Hannah likes getting autographs and free food and stuff. I did pick up a some Illuminite shirts, tights, and gloves that were really cheap for next winter and found another massage trigger point tool that is new to the market. It is a really strange looking tool called the Muscle Angel. It looks like it dropped in from another planet, but I checked it out and particularly liked the foot massage that it gave. I have tried just about everything else on the market so why not try this out, too? It works like a tennis ball, or even a tennis ball in a sock (if you get the sleeve that goes with it) but has a much firmer and targeted massage. When I used it on the bottom of my feet, it easily hit the right muscles with the right amount of control and pressure. It was not too soft like the TP Massage ball and rollers can sometimes be. I will have to test it out on other muscles to see how well if does. Aw, what's another tool? My house is full of stuff like this. The Muscle Angel -- Combo-Pack Bundleis also sold on Amazon, but I don't see any reviews up just yet. It might go well with books like Muscle Medicine: The Revolutionary Approach to Maintaining, Strengthening, and Repairing Your Muscles and Joints and The Permanent Pain Cure: The Breakthrough Way to Heal Your Muscle and Joint Pain for Good that tell you how to use a tennis ball of other objects to do ART (active release) type work on your muscles. I did reviews of these books in previous posts: Facilitated Active Stretch Technique: FAST Self Massage , Stretching Your Fascia Using "The Permanent Pain Cure, and How to Release Your Hamstrings with a Tennis Ball.

 
At the Boston Marathon expo, I felt the tuggings to just jump in and run the marathon on Monday. I think for the first time in my life, I am getting smart enough not to rush into races just to do them. Things are going well on the running front and I am sure I could pace my way through Boston, but I think it is better to keep building than to risk another injury. The good marathon will come in the fall! I'll be ready. Plus, I have to be in school teaching on Monday!
 
I have found my muscles and some joints to be getting really tight as I push up the mileage. I started reviewing all the things I have tried through the years to see what I should add back into my routine. 10-15 years ago I was doing active-isolated stretching just about daily. I had a video put out by Runner's World and the Whartons, that was lent out and never returned, but I still know the stretches. They can also be found in their book The Whartons' Stretch Book I had found the stretches really loosened up my muscles back when I did them, but they did not help my hip problems and muscles asymmetries. Now that I am doing the Postural Restoration routines to deal with my imbalances, I think it should be the best stretching routine to help my tight muscles and I started doing them again mid-week. Here is a Runnng Times article on some of the stretches.
 
I would like to give best wishes to all my friends who did qualify, train, and remained injury free for the Marathon. I hope you all have a great race. I will be enthusiastically following you all on Monday. So to all my old running friends, the Gate City Striders, and internet running friends, be smart and have a great race!
 
Speaking about Boston Marathon numbers, I really enjoyed this video from Boston.com that has an MIT student giving improbable answers to strange number questions about the Boston Marathon.
 

The Genesis of "Born to Run"

Thanks to The Exuberant Animal for finding this video that shows Christopher McDougall, who is the author of the best running book in years: Born to Run, telling about the awakening he had that was the genesis of the book. In his mind, shoes are the enemy. This short video is infomative and has some great pictures for fans of the book. Whatever you think about the idea of barefoot running, "Born to Run" is an entertaining, thought provoking,  and a must read book!



Matt Metzgar recently pointed me to another article written by Christopher McDougall that can be found in this month's Men's Health magazine. It is called Everything You Know About Muscle is Wrong. It is a very good and in-depth description of the often overlooked role of fascia in the body. One of the best and only books that I have found that describe fascial stretching is Ming Chew's The Permanent Pain Cure. I wrote about the book last year here.

ELDOA Stretching and More Joint Mobility

I have found a couple of PDF files that give some background information on myofascial stretching and joint mobility. The first PDF is called "Myofascial Stretching" and is on a stretching system called ELDOA. This system was developed by Dr. Guy Voyer and it is the system that many of the stretches used in "The Ming Method" are based upon. These are just demonstrations but they give you an idea of how the stretches do work (and how different and complicated they can be).

The other PDF file is called "Get Free to Move". It shows some of the moves in Scott Sonnen's Intu-Flow DVD. You can get a pretty good idea of the stetches and the joint mobility work that are on his Intu-Flow DVD. I have the DVD, but I see he has a book out now. There was only one review (interesting cons) on Amazon.

My Top Two Recomendations to Help You Recover Your Stride

This is my 100th post on Recover Your Stride. I have worked extremely hard at becoming a better runner or should I say I have worked hard at becoming a runner that can run pain free, injury free, be more balanced, and run with a more correct running stride. I have tried a lot of different ideas throughout the year and at one point was ready to quit because of the ongoing problem with my hips and left side. The past few months I have have really progressed and I have put together some routines that have allowed my running to feel so much smoother and to start bringing back the balance that I have not had in my running stride for over 20 years. So this 100th post on my blog will begin to highlight the 10 best things I have learned, tried ,or discovered this year. A year that is ending on a high note as just about every run I do now feels so much better than I have felt while running in years. I am getting to the point where running feels fun and free again, rather than it being a daily battle to see if i can get out the door and run in a way that doesn't hurt or feel uncomfortable.

I will start with my two favorite things I have discovered this year. Both have given me a lot of control over how my body feels and responds to running as well as they have both left me feeling so much better in my daily life. My legs are already so much looser and smoother as I continue to implement the changes brought on by working on my muscles and connective tissues. My stride feels so much lighter and younger and my joints, particularly my hips, do not feel so tight, old, and stuck in place.

I will continue in further posts with recoomendations 2-10 as well as where I think I am going next year: as I have a few things in mind and am starting to generate a "plan" for next year. That would be a first because in most recent years I have just been trying to make my body recover my stride but it was always so haphazard and I had no control. I think I am now getting to where I have control over the imbalances in my body so that I can start building on that to further enjoy running (even into my 50's). And hopefully race fast too!

Number 1
The Ming Method found in "The Permanent Pain Cure" by Ming Chew

"The Permanent Pain Cure" is the most recent book I have read and I am using bits of it on top off everything else I am doing as well as still exploring everything else in the book. I wasn't sure if I should recommend something so recent as my top choice of the year. But I think that this book has the most bang for the buck.

What I like about the program that Ming sets forth is that it is fairly comprehensive in that he covers a lot of ground. It covers stretching, strength work, and eating and hydration, but what I find most noteworthy are the self-therapy releases (based on ART) , the spinal decompression work, and the stretches for the fascia. I have not seen these things put into a general book that make them easy to understand and use. Particularly I like his releases based on ART (Active Release Technique). These up the notch a bit for people who use foam rollers, tennis balls, or elbows to a different level because you move your muscles to achieve a stretch and break up scar tissue. It is so much more effective. It has done a great job on my hamstrings and quads and allows them to loosen up and improve my running stride.

I am still playing around with the releases as well as thinking up some of my own based on the techniques. For example there are no calf and lower leg releases in the book. Last night I took out my TP Massage roller and spent just a couple of minutes on my lower leg just beneath my calf. Instead of just rolling my muscle up and down the roller, I held my leg in place and twisted and turned my foot and ankle around and back and forth. This not only loosened my leg up, I felt the effect up into my hip and lower back as they loosened up also. The most interesting thing was when I did my right lower leg, I felt the stiffness at the bottom of my right heel in certain positions. This is where I thought I might be getting plantar fasciitis in the summer. So there might be a tightness in my lower leg's muscles and tendons that could be contributing to the problem near my heel.

Here are my previous posts where I reviewed or commented on this book. I consider it a great resource for athletes (or non-athletes) using some newer techniques that they might want to try.

Stretching Your Fascia Using "The Permanent Pain Cure"

How to Release Your Hamstrings with a Tennis Ball

Number 2
Resistance Stretching

Static stretching has never worked for me. Right at the point where I was about to give up on my running this summer I took out a book I had bought a couple of years earlier. The book was "The Genius of Flexibility" by Bob Cooley. I had quickly looked at the book when I bought it and tried a few of the stretches. Unfortunately I had never read "how" Bob Cooley wanted the stretches to work. I had never used resistance against the stretches. I tried a few stretches after "reading" some of the book this time and noticed something happening that was not happening with other stretches I had tried. I read more and realized this was the method used by Dara Torres on her incredible return to the 2008 Olympics. Upon exploring resistance stretching more (you provide resistance against the stretch) I found it started loosening up my hips and muscles so that running started to become easier again.

Besides reading through the book I bought two different resistance stretching videos. One was Bob Cooley's "The Genius of Flexibility 1.0" and then as soon as it was released I got the Dara Torres Resistance Stretching Video from Innovative Body Solutions. Both DVDs are cheap and go through a 20 minute resistance stretching routine. Some stretches are different on the two DVDs so I mix up which one I use.

I also went to a resistance stretcher named Janet. She worked on my muscles and gave me some stretches and tips on how to do the stretches. I have not had the opportunity to go back as it can be expensive, but I wish I could go for a few more sessions as it felt great to have this work done on my muscles. She was able to stretch my legs and hips in many different ways that I would never be able to duplicate on my own. Resistance stretching has worked great for me and it might be just the type of stretching and strength work (it helps in that department too) to get your body untangled and running smoothly again.

Here is Bob Cooley's book:

You can go to Innovative Body Solutions to order the Dara Torres video or order through Amazon:

or you can go to Meridian Stretching to order "The Genius of Flexibility 1.0" DVD

I have had many posts on resistance stretching.

Resistance Stretching: This is what Dara Torres does!

More on Resistance Stretching

The Genius of Flexibility Video 1.0 Review

More on the Dara Torres Resistance Stretching DVD

The Growing Influence of Resistance Stretching

SNAP!!! What in the World was That? OK don't stretch too hard!!!

Hold Steady and Stay Positive After getting stretched by a professional.

Partner Resistance Stretching

Improving a Hamstring Stretch

Plus I am sure I touched on how resistance stretching has helped my running in many other posts.

Let me know if you try any of these methods and the results you get as I am curious as to how they work on other runners.

How to Release Your Hamstrings with a Tennis Ball

This is a simple and very easy way to release your hamstrings. I believe it works on the same principles as ART (Active Release Technique) and the idea comes from a great book I am reading called "The Permanent Pain Cure" by Ming Chew. I have found when I do this correctly my hamstrings are much looser which creates much more free movement in my hips as well as getting rid of tightness in my lower back.

The first thing you have to do is to sit on the edge of a table where your feet can dangle below you. Sit back and place the tennis ball a bit behind your knee and under your hamstring. Sit back a bit and rest on your hands. Put a small bit of pressure down onto your hamstring. Now point your toes and slowly straighten your leg.

When you get your leg fully extended pull your toes back towards you. Then while you keep your knee straight, start leaning forward. Tighten up your thigh and hold the position for a couple of seconds. You can do this a leg motions a couple of times depending on how tight you feel.

Then move the ball a bit higher and again do the release, repeating as necessary. Keep moving the ball slowly up your hamsting until you get to your butt. I also move the ball to the inner and outer parts of my hamsting and do the release where I feel I am tight. I also use a harder rubber ball (or even a baseball) at times when I do the release. Go gently at first however.

After I raced on Sunday my whole body felt off on the left side. I did one back spinal stretch to get a point where I had a crick in my mid-back and did the hamstring release on the left hamstring. That was all I needed to get out of the discomfort I was in. I am still playing around with this and other releases from the Ming Method book and trying to experiment to see what effect each stretch or release has on my body. I do know that when I get these correct (as well as the resistance stretching) my legs feel like they are loosely hanging from my hips rather than feeling jammed or tight into the hips.

If you like the release you can find the instructions for this and other releases in the "The Permanent Pain Cure" book that explains the Ming Method. The quadriceps release is wonderful as well as the ITB release. I haven't found instructions like this in any other book. The releases are only a very tiny bit of the book as the rest has to do with how to stretch your fascia as well as well as other information as I reviewed here.

Stretching Your Fascia Using "The Permanent Pain Cure"

If you have muscle and joint pain then I have found a new book that might interest you. I read a review of "The Permanent Pain Cure" by Ming Chew in a magazine and then checked it out on Amazon. I decided to buy it at a local bookstore so I could read it quicker rather than waiting for an Amazon order to arrive. It has some very good stuff in it, is easy to read and follow, and explains a method of restoring lost physical function in a way that is different from other books out there. Ming Chew calls his therapy "The Ming Method". He works on professional athletes but has written this book for the rest of us. What I found in the book was a mix of different therapies and an organized plan as to how to use them.



The target of Ming's pain relief is to work on the body's fascia to improve movement and bring pain-relief. Fascia is often a misunderstood or unrecognized source of many problems that athletes suffer from. Unless you get plantar fasciitis or have problems with your ITB illiotibial band you don't hear much about the body's fascia. Yet fascia is all around you (literally). It is sheets of connective tissue that wraps around all of the structures of the body: muscles, nerves, organs, bones, and blood vessels. They hold together these body structures and separate them from each other. It also connects the body together as it runs through it like a web. I notice the effect of this when a shoulder problem affects my opposite hip or a pain somewhere is relieved when I press or massage another muscle far away from the pain. I was first introduced to what fascia is when I went through rolfing sessions a couple of summers ago. Rolfing is where your fascia is stretched and molded back to its original or optimal placement so that your body works in its ideal position. It removes tightness in your body and gives your muscles and joints "space" to move correctly. It worked wonderfully for me, but unfortunately I was given no idea of how to keep my fascia in good health or how to keep my body in the great posture I had achieved after the Rolfing sessions were over.

When I saw there was a book that was dedicated to working on the fascia I decided it was worth checking out.

Here are the seven components to the Ming Method:

1. Hydration (the fascia needs to be hydrated fully)
2. An anti-inflammation diet (bye-bye sugars and trans-fatty acids)
3. Supplements to improve joint health (bye-bye money!)
4. Spinal decompression stretches to separate the vertebrae and release pressure on compressed nerves (I thought my gravity inversion table might do this but the book explains why these stretches do something different).
5. Fascial stretches
6. Strengthening exercises (he likes the use of kettlebells)
7. Self-therapy techniques

I started with the hydration last night. I am drinking a ton more water than I usually do. This might become problematic at school when I can't leave my class some days for over 4 hours to use the restroom. The dieting is sound advice, but the supplementation may be something I just ignore for the most part. Ming Chow suggests you do these for over 10 days before you begin the stretching as you have to get your fascia in a healthier state. I did try some of the spinal decompression stretches to see how they went. They are tough but you did feel whole body stretches as you lengthen your fascia.

The fascial stretches look similar in form to other stretching techniques but the directions help you get the correct positioning while stretching. In order to stretch the fascia it has to be anchored at both ends of the muscle (this is not static stretching). I like the resistance stretching I am doing so if I like this it would be in conjunction and not instead of resistance stretching.

The strengthening exercises would come into play later in the program as your fascia and body should be in the correct posture or otherwise you would be strengthening an imbalance. This makes sense as I enjoyed doing kettlebells last winter but noticed that if my hips were off then I felt imbalanced and did not enjoy the routines. I have kept away from the kettlebells because I didn't think they were helping my inefficiencies. I would like to be balanced enough to do them again.

The self-therapy techniques are really good and worth the price of the book (even though there are only a few and this section is very short). I believe these are based the ART (Active Release Technique) and the author did study under and credits Dr. Michael Leahy, the founder of ART, in this book.

The hamstring release shows you how to use a tennis ball to release the hamstring. His techniques is not just rolling your loose hamstring on a ball or foam roller. It involves moving the leg as in an ART treatment. The ITB release shows you how to use the foam roller to release the ITB band. Again movement from the involved leg is required not just a rolling over the ITB. The quadriceps release shows you how to use your own elbow to hold the muscle and fascia in place so as you move your leg you can target and stretch the fascia. This is all good stuff and I liked the effect they had on my leg. There is also a sole of the foot release that I have not tried yet, but will as the bottom of my right foot has been stiff and sore for months.

The book is an easy read. The directions are clear for the stretching (there could be more pictures of each stretch) and I particularly like the "What it should feel like" box that goes with each stretch. I think the fact that the book makes it easy to understand the role of the fascia in the body and details a method to easily improve your fascial health makes the book unique among all of the books I have seen or read. Doing his techniques and program should not take that much time out of your day. He says about 15-20 minutes. This book is informative and I intend to continue exploring it further.

I have not had a good week of running. Wednesday I started feeling a little off and did my first treadmill run of the year (3 miles on a treadmill seems like forever!). Then I think I had a minor fever or infection. It wasn't bad but kept me from running. Today, however, I went for an 8 mile run on my usual loop. I ran one minute faster than my best time of the year. I wasn't even running hard. My legs were feeling loose. My stride felt long. I didn't even push. It was an easy run. What happened? Was it a break from running? the water I had been consuming? the hamstring release I tried last night? I think the biggest difference was the quadriceps release from the book. I did it right before the run.

Since doing the resistance stretching my muscles have become much looser. The problem has been that my left knee continues to buckle in. I think it is tightness within my inner hamstring, but for a few weeks I have had a tightness in my outer left quadriceps too. I can't seem to stretch the tightness out. I did the quadriceps release and it felt so much better. Maybe this helped make my left leg stretch out better on today's run? Anyhow it was a great run that felt very effortless.

As this running year draws to a close I feel that I have some good techniques in place to get my body to the point where I can have great runs most of the time and not worry about imbalances and tight muscles and joints. Maybe next year I will have a year of running where everything goes right and I can hit the times I know that I can run if my body works correctly. I will use resistance stretching to get my muscles loose and strong. I will use the sacrum adjustment when my sacrum gets stuck (I have found this doesn't seem to be a daily adjustment-it works when needed though). This is what Kalidasa wrote me in regards to how the release works:

"The sacrum release on that video uses the piriformis muscle. It attaches to the sacrum and to the top of the thigh bone. When you draw the back leg hip is drawn forward the piriformis is pulled and so is the sacrum. The arch picks up the sacrum where it is (out of alignment) and moving forward brings it along with piriformis."

I am going to continue to check out "The Permanent Pain Cure" and work on stretching the fascia and keeping it healthy. I need to make a concerted effort to work on my diet with the "Precision Nutrition" and not eating too much this winter and to eat healthy. I need to keep my left leg, knee, and hip in alignment (this is the toughest one) and then just keep running. Hopefully the coming winter will bring me more ways to to recover my stride.